Stamkos broke his leg on Nov. 11 and has healed at a bizarre rate of speed, so Carlyle's suspicions aren't meritless. He said on Monday that he wanted to play against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday and didn't mention the Toronto game.

"It's the best day it's felt," Stamkos said. "It felt great going up and down the ice, the lungs felt pretty good. It was nice to snap around on the power play a little bit, too. It was a big hurdle for me today. A lot of it is physical but there's a mental side and today was climbing over another hurdle."

Stamkos was set for an X-ray on Wednesday, so everyone will have their answers soon enough — including Flyers forward Claude Giroux, who's one of the first in line to take Stamkos' spot on the Canadian Olympic team in the apparently unlikely event he can't make it to Sochi.